Naperville Art - Symbiotic Sojourn

The Promenade Building, where the Naperville Chamber is located, was developed by Dwight and Ruth Yackley of BBM, Inc. in 2003. They also commissioned a bronze relief to be installed in the courtyard: “Symbiotic Sojourn.”

“Symbiotic Sojourn” was created by Jeff Adams, an artist who works out of his own bronze-casting facility, inBronze, which is located in Oregon, Illinois. He started working in a local fine art foundry when he was just fifteen years old, but pursued a degree in civil engineering before returning to sculpture. Adams also created

“Two in a Million,” the bronzes of Walter and Grace Fredenhagen along the Riverwalk and he worked with Dick Locher’s design to cast the Joseph Naper statue on Mill Street.

The idea behind “Symbiotic Sojourn” is that we have a symbiotic relationship with our home planet that needs tending. Two children are found at the feet of the woman who is the Spirit of the Earth. The girl child is trying to hold the pieces of a fracturing Earth together. The boy child is pulling a wagon piled with cans and bottles, a throw-back

image of recycling’s humble beginning.

“Symbiotic Sojourn” was inspired by Barbara Ashley Sielaff, a local recycling activist from the 1970s. Sielaff was a district teacher who also wrote a column for the Naperville Sun called “You Can Save Our Earth.” She established the Naperville Area Recycling Center in 1973 and managed it for several years before moving out of state.

After the Center closed, residents appealed to the city who tapped the League of Women Voters, the Kiwanis and the Naperville Woman’s Club, among others, to fill the void. NARC started as a not-for-profit volunteer-run drop-off center. After a while, one homeowner’s association began collecting recyclables from the entire neighborhood to drop-off at NARC. More neighborhoods followed suit, and eventually, recycling collection became a city-wide program.

In warm weather, dining patrons can sit out in the courtyard and listen to water spilling from the hand of the Spirit of Earth into the pool below. Larger than life, “Symbiotic Sojourn” is beautiful to look at, but Adams, Sielaff and the Yackleys hope diners will also bring the recycling message home.